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Crusaders rehabilitated? |
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Beylerbeyi 
Chieftain 
Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: Cuba Online Status: Offline Posts: 1355 |
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 Topic: Crusaders rehabilitated?Posted: 30-Mar-2006 at 15:06 |
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When Muslims conquered Christian lands, they didn't force the populace to convert. Christian crusades, on the other hand, were actions to wipe out heresies. Christian churches wiped other churches and their believers out, before coming of Islam. The crusaders who went to the Middle East, thought that Islam was another heresy. And they went to wipe it out. They didn't know much about Islam.
No need to apologise for what that fascist writes, genosse. |
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Voyager
Pretorian 
Joined: 14-Jan-2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 151 |
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Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 17:33 |
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Wrong, only if Christians paid the jizyah tax. If not, they wee in
trouble. Besides, I am amased that you're trying to legitimate the
Muslim invasion of other societies, by claiming that Christians were
worse.
Wrong again. The Crusades were initially meant to reconquer lost
Christian territory. Crusades against heresies only took place in
Europe against Christian heretics and not in the Middle East since Islam is not a Christian heresy. I hope you've learned the difference.
Wrong again (this is starting to be boring...). Crusades against
heretics only started in the 13th century whereas the Crusades against
Islam started in the 11th.
After this sentence, it is obvious to me that you don't know much about Christians and the motives of the Crusades.
In other words, those who agree with you are good guys, those who don't are just a bunch of fascists. |
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Constantine XI
Suspended 
Suspended Joined: 01-May-2005 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5711 |
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Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 18:38 |
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Actually, the persecution of Eastern Christians in the Mid East is well documented. Byzantine princess Anna Comnena actually records that men of Peter the Hermit's Crusade hunted down Anatolians (most of whom would have been Greek Christians in 1095) to kill and torture. When Jerusalem was taken, the Orthodox Patriarch was thrown aside to install a Latin one. The Eastern Christians, at best, would look forward to being treated as second class by the Latins. The initial impetus of Crusades was against Islam, but when Islam became too tough a target they spent most of their energy attacking other Christians.
He didn't say crusades were launched against other churches, only that the Christians wiped out other churches. This is very true, the Medieval church was highly dogmatic and tolerated no real deviation. Whether or not the Church called their persecution of other Christians a crusade or not probably made no different to those fellow Christians who were being burnt to death or put to the sword.
I actually disagree with Bey's first sentence but agree with his second. The Christians knew so little about Islam that they actually regarded Islam as being completely pagan, not a heresy. They were so ignorant of it, it didn't occur to them until after the crusades facilitated contact with the Muslim world that Islam was just another strand of Abrahamic faith. Prior to that, they thought Islam was just another pagan faith like what was practiced by the Slavic people in the Baltic. Edited by Constantine XI |
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Voyager
Pretorian
Joined: 14-Jan-2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 151 |
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Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 03:59 |
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You're talking about communal tensions between Catholics and Orthodoxs, which were already quite old by then. That is not the same thing as a Crusade.
You seem to forget that after the attacks on Constantinople and the Catars in the early 13th century there continued to be Crusades against Islam, such as the expeditions organised by S. Lewis of France. |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 04:26 |
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Yes, tensions existed, but they were both Christian nations whose differences in dogma were petty at best. The fact is it wasn't a Crusade against in the Eastern Christians in the beginning (though it did turn into one a century later). Don't you find it interesting how the Crusaders so often betrayed their ideals of fighting Islam just to turn against their fellow coreligionists? The fact that the Crusaders turned on their own allies in the name of pillage and rapine proves the point of what a betrayal of ideals the Crusades truly were.
I haven't forgotten about those in the least. But lets examine which crusades were more wholehearted by a simple criteria: success. How many Crusades against Islam succeeded compared to crusades against other Christians or the Baltic peoples? To answer precisely, only Crusade # 1 and Frederick II's achieved their objectives. Yet the suppression of the Cathars, conquest of Constantinople (something never accomplished before due to sheer difficulty) and the Crusades in the Baltic were all pretty successful. Provides a good deal of proof of where the Crusaders were really directing their efforts once they realized how hard it was to defeat Islam. |
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Voyager
Pretorian
Joined: 14-Jan-2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 151 |
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Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 05:20 |
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Well, for secular eyes those differences may sound very petty, but for religious minds they are not. Notice that even today the different Christians congregations continue to have differences between each other. And in the Muslim world you can even see Sunni and Shia killing each other.
The official reason of the Crusades was to reconquer lost Christian lands and in particular Jerusalem, which was seen as the centre of the world by Christians. You seem to suggest that they were mostly an excuse for rapine and pillage. It is true that some of the members of the Crusades did that, but there were also a lot of pious members, because if not, then why bother to risk dying for Jerusalem?
The moment that the idea of Crusade as the reconquest of former Christian lands became accepted, then heresies that developed within Christianity such as the Catars and others, had necessarily to be fought. They were not just an excuse to avoid fighting Muslims while going after easy targets (a lot of people died in those internal crusades). And those targets were not as easy as you imply: the Greeks expelled the Latins from Constantinople some decades later and internal wars within Western Christianity were a constant until the 17th century, culminating in the brutal 30 Years War. Notice also that after the fall of Acre in 1291, there were until the 17th century several projects to reconquer Jerusalem, though for several reasons they never materialised. |
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arsenka
Samurai 
Joined: 27-Nov-2005 Location: Russian Federation Online Status: Offline Posts: 104 |
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Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 10:11 |
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Maybe Im just mean realist Crusades were war campaigns you wont deny this fact, will you? And every war has certain economic and social reasons in its mechanism besides religious (/ideological) ones. Crusades also have these reasons and one cant just through them away. Do you remember social and economic conditions in Europe of the time BTW? They were very disposing to smth like Crusades, I think.
>>>>Thus the idea to achieve thus Kingdom of Heaven queerly mixed in human mind with idea of Earthly Edens quest. Crusade in - its oficially proclaimed form - perfectly satisfied all these longings. The whole idea was brilliant: both social and religious tensions got necessary direction; society released of the abundance of turbulent marginal population; Pope became the most influent figure in European political life; and at last, the whole thing was profitable Oriental lands were rich. "The official reason of the Crusades was to reconquer lost Christian lands and in particular Jerusalem, which was seen as the centre of the world by Christians." Yes, it was. But you shouldn't forget also that these lands, besides being rich, were also the crossroads for several trading roots BTW. "You seem to suggest that they were mostly an excuse for rapine and pillage". How may pious ides of one person hinder another one to realise these rapine and pillage if they are proclaimed to be done for the same pious ideas sake? Thirst for religious heroism was common mood then, but attaining of Heaven in the Crusade perfectly joined with the idea about the quest for Earthly Eden. Don't you find it interesting how the Crusaders so often betrayed their ideals of fighting Islam just to turn against their fellow coreligionists? The fact that the Crusaders turned on their own allies in the name of pillage and rapine proves the point of what a betrayal of ideals the Crusades truly were. Edited by arsenka |
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arsenka
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Beylerbeyi
Chieftain
Joined: 02-Aug-2004 Location: Cuba Online Status: Offline Posts: 1355 |
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Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 17:37 |
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I am not trying to legitimate Muslim invasion. I am showing the difference between Muslim expansion and barbaric campaigns called crusades.
Crusades are more than military campaigns to reconquer lost territory. Now, Christians were fully capable of mounting such campaigns and territory has been changing hands between the Byzantines and Muslims of different states for centuries. Byzantines hadn't slaughtered populations when they reclaimed towns, or practiced cannibalism... Crusaders did. Hope you learned the difference.
As smarter people noticed, I wrote Christian churches wiped other churches out. There were actions fought against heresies such as the Arians, or Gnostics, before the coming of Islam. Calling them crusade or not is a technical matter. The point is Christian churches were very intolerant against each other, and other beliefs.
That guy calls himself a fascist. You can see the fasci symbol in his avatar. So I call him a fascist. The question is, what's your problem?
Well, Muhammed was called 'impostor' and 'fake prophet'. Of course not all Crusaders knew what they were up against, but it is quite common that the Christians consider Islam as a travesty of their religion, rather than an independent pagan belief as in the Baltic. It doesn't matter much, though, since they were intolerant against both cases. Edited by Beylerbeyi |
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Voyager
Pretorian
Joined: 14-Jan-2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 151 |
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Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 17:42 |
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Well, I don't deny that for some of the members of the crusades, material considerations also a had a considerable weight. But the prime factor was religious. For modern-day secular Europeans dying for religion doesn't make much sense, which means that there is a tendency to privilege other reasons besides religious ones. But that's a wrong approach. Just look to today's Muslim societies where religion still counts a lot and where their behavious is usually "confusing" for secular minds as it was visible in the recent Cartoon row or the attempt to kill the Christian convert in Afghanistan. If you want to be realistic about the Middle Ages, you have to take more in consideration religious and ideological factors and not solely material ones. |
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Constantine XI
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Suspended Joined: 01-May-2005 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5711 |
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Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 19:42 |
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Which in no way justifies the tremendous damage the Crusaders wrought to their fellow Christians. Dealing a fatal blow to Byzantium and attacking southern France with calls to kill indiscriminately "kill them all, God will recognise His own", was in no way less of a disaster for Christendom because the "official" reason for a Crusade was to get at Islam.
Look at Pope Urban II's speech in which he called for the First Crusade. There was a reason he reminded Europeans that Palestine was a land of vast riches, of milk and honey. Notice how many younger sons of the nobility went on Crusade, knowing that was their best chance of carving out a fiefdom in an age of primogeniture inheritance. Notice how enthusiastically the Italian city states participated, once they were guaranteed handsome commercial gain. The corrupt ideals behind the Crusades are written in the blood of innocents and allies whose destruction the Crusaders turned to in order to enrich themselves.
The Heretical quests were easier to reach, offered alot of cash (in the case of Byzantium's sack) and the Crusaders had a much better record of success against fellow Christians than against Islam. Quite often the heresies which developed at this time were symptomatic of Christian discontent with the Papacy. Many in the Christian world considered the sudden explosion of Papal power and authority to be an unwelcome feature of life. And why did Byzantium have to be conquered and ruined? There was no cause for it, they had been useful allies of the Crusading cause since the outset of the Crusades. Petty jeolousy and greed were the only motivations, even a Papal bull demanding no one attack Constantinople was ignored. Where was the pious idealism as the knights were running through the streets of Christianity's greatest city committing murder, rapine and plunder in a wanton and shocking fashion? |
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arsenka
Samurai
Joined: 27-Nov-2005 Location: Russian Federation Online Status: Offline Posts: 104 |
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Posted: 04-Apr-2006 at 07:31 |
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If you want to be realistic about the Middle Ages, you have to take more in consideration religious and ideological factors and not solely material ones.
I never tried to deny religious reason in launching Crusades and turn the whole complex of reasons into the limited group of material ones (Read once again my previous message, please!); I just mean that we should consider all the reasons considering the question. No religious rage would cause big-scale war without proper social and economic background and you dont mention about them at all, thus distorting the whole image of Crusades. It seems to me also that you are mixing up the fields of personal and social psychology when estimating events. Psychology of single human being and social psychology differ greately: fpr example, terms like "self-sacrifice", "mercy", "piousity", applicable to characteristics of single person, cant be applied to explanation of the things that are organized and realized on the state-level. Im sure there were a lot of pious and honest crusaders whose only dream was to set free Holy Coffin and who had never thought about their personal profit. But Im sure as well there were also plenty of greedy and calculative ones for whom the quest for Holy Coffin meant no more than a very convenient pretext for thei own purposes and who had joined the Crusade searching for the lands they had no chance to get in Europe,for treasures and money they hadnt had before, for glory and power they hadnt been likely to get on local courts service. There must have been also those who followed the proverb: Hope for Gods help but trust on your own energy nevertheless. those whose pious designes couldnt prevent them from providing their own earthly future. Why? Society was overwhelmed with pious rage, thirst for catharsis etc....Perfect. There were thousands of ways to satisfy these moods. They could have sent all the thirsting to the monasteries or to the woods to lead hermits life; or they could have checked: maybe there were some noxious witches or wizards that spoiled everything; they could have taken various holy vows etc.... All these relatively peaceful means (or some others of the same kind) would perfectly satisfy societys spiritual turbulence, but it would neither solve the problem of overpopulation (>>>hunger and epidemics) nor give any lands and money to those who needed them. At last those means would have never raised Papal power in european politics on such level as Crusades had done. I mean that spiritual and religious aspirings of the time was a very fertile soil for any seed. These religious agitations could have been delivered in different ways. They chose the way that turned out to be very profitable to the Pope, Italian towns and certain part of society.>>> It would be logical to suppose that such a choice must have been made under certain influence of the persons interested in it. Anyways, any deed should be estimated by its results and not by its designs. Crusaders did what they did in spite of their piousity: there was Zadar they raided, there was Constantinople they ruined and some other curious things. Papal influence grew notoriuosly, mediterranian commerce as well......As for catharsis - it didn't happen... |
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arsenka
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R_AK47
Baron 
Joined: 25-Jan-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 468 |
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Posted: 04-Apr-2006 at 12:52 |
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Actually, the reconquest of Spain was a crusade against islam and it was a great success. Today Spain is a Christian country and the muslims are mostly gone. |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 05-Apr-2006 at 03:29 |
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No, it wasn't a Crusade against Islam. It was a national war fought for territory by rival princes. The war was fought on a pragmatic basis according to the norms of the day, only rarely did the Papacy involve itself in the Spanish reconquest. Simply because it was a conflict of Christian vs Muslim that doesn't mean it was a Crusade  . |
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Philhellene
Pretorian
Joined: 14-Jul-2006 Location: Russian Federation Online Status: Offline Posts: 164 |
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Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 16:21 |
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I see you don`t know why the crusaders conquered the Byzantine empire. It wasn`t their initial plan, they only wanted to overthrow usurper Alexius III and to place previos emperor Isaac II and his son Alexius IV on the throne, and Alexius IV promised to pay them for it, but when his uncle Alexius III fled and they captured Constantinople both new emperors refused to pay. The situation was disastrous because the crusaders were bankrupt (as you remember they failed to gather as many people as they wanted, but they already ordered the Venetian fleet and the price was too high for such a few number of crusaders) and they had nothing left but to capture the city once again. And then they still wanted to get at Muslim lands, but Bulgarian invasion put an end to their plans.
You all forgot the factor of religios persecution in the Holy land in the very beginning of the 11th century when the Muslim rulers slaughtered a lot of Christians and ruined or damaged some Christians temples (including the Temple of Resurrection). Then there were the famous masacre of palmers in the middle of the same century. Muslims weren`t tolerant, it`s a fiction.
Edited by Philhellene - 16-Jul-2006 at 16:44 |
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Illuminati
General 
Joined: 08-Dec-2004 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 949 |
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Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 18:37 |
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I guess it is totally debateable, but I wouldn't classify it as a crusade. It was a coalition of mainly Spanish principalities in 1212 that kicked out the Moors (though, the Moors were able to hold onto Grenada). The coalition of the rival Christian princes was led by Alfonso VIII of Castille and was largely between Sancho VII of Nevarre, Afonso II of Portugal, and Peter II of Aragon. The major crusades involved kings and nobles from all throughout Europe, and had full papal backing and if possible, financing. The battle against the Moors never had too much of that Though, it is imporant to note that the Templars did dispatch knights to Spain at one point. I'll have to double check on who the Templars aided, but I think it was primarily the Kingdom of Aragon. -on a side note, I don't know where people get the idea that Muslims during this period wree more tolerant and less violent than the Crusades. Saladin himself had innocent people slaughtered. The muslim armies were definitely no more tolerant and respectful of innocent people than the Crusades were. Islam spread through the sword just as much as christianity Edited by Illuminati - 16-Jul-2006 at 18:46 |
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pikeshot1600
Tsar 
Joined: 22-Jan-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 4221 |
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Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 20:12 |
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I think the Spanish and Portuguese Crusading Military Orders would disagree with you.
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edgewaters
Sultan 
Snake in the Grass-Banned Joined: 13-Mar-2006 Location: Canada Online Status: Offline Posts: 2394 |
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Posted: 16-Jul-2006 at 20:24 |
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Meh. Standard practice for all medieval warfare. The Anglo-Normans got the Pope's blessing and did it invading Ireland, for instance, and the Irish were alot more Christian than the A-N's! |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 17-Jul-2006 at 04:36 |
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I'm sure they would, but they were a supplementary force to an army which was raised from the indigenous population. Spain was a different case from the Crusades in the Middle East, Baltic or against the Cathars in that it was a conflict where the Papacy was not required as the primary force to stimulate conflict, the national interests of indigenous Christian rulers were sufficient. Unlike the usual "us vesus them" mentality of the Christians in other theatres, the Spanish Christians were quite content to ally with their sectarian others to fight their Christian brethren. Christian Iberia relied on her local manpower to carry out a slow campaign of reconquest typified by pragmatic means rather than zealous religious ideology. Religion and religious orders played a role, but then they did so in every other conflict of the age (offering remission of sins was actually a pretty common practice before a battle, not at all confined to crusading armies). Unlike the other crusading theatres, Iberia's reconquest was neither fueled by the religious zealotry of the crusading movement nor was it reliant on it for the manpower to accomplish the reconquest. |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 17-Jul-2006 at 04:38 |
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As far as the Papacy was concerned, if you didn't adhere to the Latin liturgy and rite then you were not Christian enough. Pity for the Irish. |
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R_AK47
Baron
Joined: 25-Jan-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 468 |
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Posted: 19-Jul-2006 at 11:57 |
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The Crusading Military Orders that operated in the Middle East were also a supplementary force.
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but I think one shouldnt mix Divine gifts and fried eggs (thats a proverb meaning that one shouldnt
One should just remember about 4th Crusaders' penal raid on Dalmatian town Zadar (it was christian town) - 1202 and ruining of Constantinople - 1204. 
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